Body Impolitic

Blogging about a wide range of body image and photography topics, and more.

What Matters? The Implant or the Woman?

Laurie and Debbie say:

We first came across this story at the article at the link, a blog post on the L.A. Times site. Newspaper blog posts are paid journalism.

A British woman’s breast implant reportedly exploded after she was hit in the chest by a paintball, which can travel at 190 mph.

UK Paintball has now adjusted its policies accordingly. “We respectfully ask that any ladies with surgical breast implants notify our team at the time of booking,” according to a statement on its website. “You will be given special information on the dangers of paintballing with enhanced boobs and asked to sign a disclaimer. You will also be issued with extra padding to protect your implants while paintballing.

Yes, their official statement says “enhanced boobs.”

What struck us immediately was that the L.A. Times blog piece (by Amina Khan, who appears to be a regular science blog writer for the newspaper) doesn’t say anything about what happened to the woman. Did she die? Did she suffer minor injuries and go home with no problem? Was it something in between? Googling around yields a little more information. ABC News says that the paintball company says “the woman is likely to make a full recovery.” Well, that sounds fairly serious, but it’s hardly detailed.

The International Business Times says: “Apparently, this injury could end up costing the woman almost $5,000.” That might not sound astonishing to American readers, but in the United Kingdom, spending that kind of money out of pocket for a medical issue is far less common. Again, a serious comment, but hardly detailed.

Various articles talk about the safety issues regarding paintball and/or the safety issues regarding breast implants. We did a little research ourselves, and it would appear that while some dangers of breast implants have been exaggerated (such as the unsupported belief that there’s a link between breast implants and fibromyalgia), in fact the gel implants don’t have a long life (more than half need attention within 15 years) and the FDA recommends an MRI once every 2-3 years, to be paid for out of the patient’s pocket. (Minimum MRI prices in the U.S. are about $1500.) We wonder how many women with implants are getting those MRIs? And how many end up with either major health problems and/or even more major expenses if they don’t get them.

But regardless of how you feel about breast implants, and how you feel about paintball, it seems clear that everyone is focused on the implant, some people are focused on other breast implant stories, some people are focused on paintball and the company’s response, but no one is very interested in what has happened to the woman.

And here we would have thought that this was her story.

4 thoughts on “What Matters? The Implant or the Woman?”

The word “boobs” is used far more widely and in much more formal contexts than in the United States. It took me (American expat in England) some time to get used to “boobs” being used unselfconsciously where “breasts” would be the only reasonable term in the US.

This provides entertainment when I point out to visiting American friends a specialty bra shop that has “for the larger-boobed woman” professionally painted outside as its motto.

It’s possible that they couldn’t get an interview with the woman, and given medical privacy issues, there’s a limit to how much information can be given out by the hospital, her doctors, or the paintball company without her consent.